Verses 81–88

The eleventh stanza is headed by the letter ‘kaph’—‘palm of the hand.’

With the palm one strikes a slap—offensive to the one who receives it; with the palm one touches the cheek of a beloved person in order to kiss more sweetly. Thus it is both an instrument of insult and offense and an instrument of the warmest love. Such a title is very fitting for this stanza, in which the prophet presents a person being insulted, unjustly oppressed, who turns to God in trusting prayer for help and intercession. He speaks, as it were, thus: ‘They are striking me—do You caress me, O Lord!’ Everything spoken here is very applicable to Job on his dung-heap, to the holy martyrs, and in many respects to those who struggle with the passions and lusts.

Ps. 118:81. My soul faints for Your salvation: but I hope in Your word.

‘Faints for salvation’—that is, strongly desires to receive salvation from You, and so strongly as to reach a state of ecstasy. ‘Those who desire something greatly,’ says blessed Theodoret, ‘but are deprived of what they desire, say of themselves that they as it were faint. So it is with those who are tormented by a fierce thirst and have no water; so it is with those who await the return of some acquaintance from hour to hour and, not seeing his arrival, faint from desire; so also those who struggle with various misfortunes and await God’s shelter—when they see it delayed, they faint as it were.’ ‘In Your word I hoped—that is, in the promise,’ clarifies St. Athanasius.

This is now the third stanza the prophet devotes to depicting those who suffer and are oppressed for faithfulness to God’s will and His commandments. Here ‘salvation’ is understood as deliverance from the humbling and belittling attacks, sorrows, and privations for the sake of God’s word. What is said here is very fitting for Job on his dung-heap, or for some martyr who was long tormented in chains and frequently subjected to torture, as well as for any innocent sufferer. But these words can also be taken separately from the rest and seen in them as the cry of a soul thirsting for salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ from sin and eternal ruin. So St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, and blessed Augustine think.

St. Athanasius writes: ‘The prophet teaches us to long for the word and to be filled with love for God’s salvation; and what other salvation is there besides the Lord’s coming?’ St. Ambrose says: ‘Faints — one who passes with his whole soul into what he loves thinks of it, speaks of it, is attached to it, clings to it with his whole soul. Such a feeling is experienced by a mother awaiting the return of her beloved son, as the mother of Tobias experienced it. What does it mean that the soul “faints for salvation”? — This: a soul that has cleaved to the Lord, as it were ceases to be a soul, and becomes “one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17). The holy and God-fearing person desires nothing except the salvation of God, which is Christ the Lord; only Him does he yearn for, only Him does he desire, toward Him does he press with all his powers, Him does he warm in the bosom of his mind, to Him does he open himself and before Him pours out his soul, and he fears one thing only—lest he be deprived of communion with Him. In another place the prophet says of himself: “My soul thirsts for You,” and a little further adds: “my soul cleaves after You: Your right hand upholds me” (Ps. 62:2, 9). One who thirsts desires to be at the spring and seeks nothing so much as to reach the water as quickly as possible. So the soul too presses toward the Lord. And the Lord, receiving her in His right hand and pouring into her His strength, makes it so that she seems to cease to be: I live, she says, “yet not I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). How the soul faints for the salvation of God, holy prophet Jeremiah depicts well: “and it was,” he says, “in my heart as a burning fire, burning in my bones, and I was weakened on all sides, and could not bear it” (Jer. 20:9). It is well said: “in Your word I hoped”—first hope kindles, and fainting follows upon it. Meditating on what he had read in God’s word, and seeing that, being in the body, as if bound by certain chains of this life, he was far from the salvation of God, he yearned for it, pressed toward it, fainted in it, poured out into it all his heart. Such also fades the spirit of one who, denying himself, cleaves wholly to Christ the Lord. Whoever, fainting in himself, cleaves to Him, loses what is his own and receives what is divine, eternal, fully quieting.’

Ps. 118:82. Mine eyes fail for Your word, saying: When will You comfort me?

‘Here,’ interprets blessed Theodoret, ‘by “word” is meant God’s promise. One who awaits the fulfillment of God’s promise and the cessation of the surrounding evils faints toward it.’

In ordinary speech one sometimes says of one who has long awaited someone with a strong desire to see him: ‘his eyes have grown dim from watching.’ So too one who is burdened by sorrow, turning his eyes in prayer to God, asks and waits for help—waits for days, months, and years, and still the help does not come. How can he not cry out: ‘When will You comfort me?’ This expresses not a failure of hope, but the intensity of desire. It was fitting to cry out thus for the martyr who was tortured for twenty-eight years—tormented and then back to prison; barely recovered and tormented again—and back to prison; fitting also for the man who had been ill for thirty-eight years, before whose eyes each year someone received healing at the pool—someone who had fallen ill after him and had not lain there as long; fitting also for the blind man of Jericho, who sat by the road and could barely wait for salvation to pass his way. In the prophet’s word and in these examples one hears a powerful lesson for us—not to let hope fail when the fulfillment of our petitions for deliverance from oppressive needs is slow in coming, and, crying out: ‘When, O Lord, will You comfort me?’ — not to lose hope.

The holy Fathers named above also understand this passage to speak of the soul seeking salvation in the Lord. But when the soul cleaves to the Lord and has Him within itself—what more is there to desire? One thing: the fuller fulfillment of what it awaits from the Lord. To the penitent, forgiveness is proclaimed in the sacrament of repentance; but the sense of forgiveness, the inward assurance that the sins are forgiven, does not come quickly. For the spirit in contrition over this, it is fitting to cry out: ‘When will You comfort me?’ A certain elder shut a great repentant sinner in his cell, and after the passing of three years said to her: ‘God has revealed to me that all your sins are forgiven.’ During that interval of time, was it not fitting for her to cry out: ‘When will You comfort me?’ What applies to repentance applies also to every spiritual gift in Christ Jesus. Not one is given, or appropriated, to the soul immediately—everything has its appointed time; and the establishment in every virtue comes only in its own time. Nothing can be seized forcibly from the hand of the Lord: seek, pray, wait—and from this comes the cry: ‘When will You comfort me?’ Blessed Augustine writes: ‘With the words “when will You comfort me” the prophet shows how burdensome is the delay in receiving what is desired. But the giver delays the giving so that the receiving may be the more pleasant and what is received may be the more vigilantly preserved. The Lord knows when to give what to whom, for He always orders all things by measure, weight, and number.’

St. Ambrose refers the cry ‘When will You comfort me?’ to the soul that has come to desire the grace of contemplation. Active perfection is the first stage of the Christian life, and contemplation is the second, higher one. One ascends to it through the cleansing of the soul—but not by oneself, but being led up by the Lord and the grace of the Spirit. Meanwhile, one who has desired it also directs there the eye of his mind; but for all his striving, he himself sees nothing. With the Lord and His grace, all things have their appointed time. Hence the cry: ‘When will You comfort me?’ All the mysteries of God are revealed in God’s word, but are grasped only when grace grants their grasp. Suddenly the mind perceives in the word what it had not seen in it before, though it had read and pondered it several times.

Ps. 118:83. For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget Your statutes.

In the first two verses the prophet expressed only his strong desire for help and his sorrow that what he hoped for did not come quickly; now he sets forth the reasons why it would be right to hasten the fulfillment of the promise and to put an end to his sufferings.

The first reason is this: I have become, he says, like a bottle in the frost, in the cold, on the ice or in the snow; and yet, for all that, I have not forgotten and do not forget Your statutes. ‘A bottle in the frost,’ reasons Zigabenus, ‘freezes, contracts, spoils, becomes good for nothing.’ I have become good for nothing, he says—to look at me, one might as well throw me away—and all this from sorrows, privations, attacks and oppressions. No property, and my bodily strength is exhausted: no home, hungry, naked, and barefoot; and besides that, blind, lame, and enfeebled, barely moving. To whom could one more fittingly hasten for help? For all this is for the sake of Your statutes—for the sake of my being faithful to You and not departing from Your law. How fitting such speech would have been on the lips of Lazarus on his dung-heap! And yet Lazarus was left as he was until the end of his days. Therefore one must always discern in the prophet’s words that he is taking upon himself the face of various kinds of sufferers and, entering into their condition, stretches out from their faces a prayerful word to God—without, however, removing the submission to God’s will, which is the soul of prayer and an inseparable quality of those who please God as they ought.

The holy fathers, interpreting this passage in a moral sense, see in the comparison—“like a wineskin in the frost”—an allusion to self-mortification, the first condition for advancement in the spiritual life, which Saint Paul also strictly observed: “I chastise my body,” he says, “and bring it into subjection, lest after preaching to others I myself should be rejected” (1 Cor. 9:27). Saint Athanasius writes as follows: “The righteous, while still in this life, become as dead men through their sufferings; and so they are likened more to wineskins than to men, having grown cold like hardened frost. He becomes a wineskin in the frost who mortifies (crushes to dust) his flesh, leaves nothing in it that can be inflamed or lustful, but freezes it, as it were, into ice.”

Saint Ambrose speaks to the same effect: “A wineskin is made from the skin of an animal that has ceased to live; so we too must die to sin and the flesh, if we wish to live for God. Then we shall become new wineskins into which new wine can safely be poured. Whoever wishes both to nourish the body and to preserve grace is seeking the impossible. The wineskin in the frost is one who always carries in his body the dying of the Lord, who does not fatten his body like those of whom it is said: ‘they ate and drank and rose up to play’ (Exod. 32:6). Let him who is drunk not with wine but with the Spirit boast, like David, that he has become as a wineskin in the frost.” “When spiritual desires are inflamed,” writes Blessed Augustine, “fleshly desires grow cold. This is what the prophet speaks of here. By the word ‘wineskin’ he points to lustful flesh, and by ‘frost’—the heavenly gift, by which, as by a frost, fleshly lusts are killed. The consequence of this is that the judgments of God do not fall from memory, for then one thinks of nothing else, when ‘no provision is made for the flesh to fulfill its lusts’ (Rom. 13:14).”

Ps. 118:84. How many are the days of Your servant? When will You execute judgment on them that persecute me?

The prophet speaks as if to say: days follow upon days, years upon years; I wait for Your protection, but it does not come. My life is already in its twilight, and I am still under oppression, while my enemies triumph. When, O Lord, will You execute judgment upon those who persecute me, when will You put them to shame and raise me up from humiliation?

How natural is such a cry from one around whom both his own enemies and God’s enemies are rejoicing! Death may strike at any moment—shall these enemies then go unpunished? Of course he grieves for himself, yet he does not separate himself from the interests of God. Animated by a sense of divine righteousness to utter so bold a word, he speaks as if to say: would You permit Your righteousness to be outraged with impunity? Here lies a second reason why help should be hastened to the one who suffers.

Blessed Augustine likens this cry to the cry of the slain in the Apocalypse: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, do You not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Rev. 6:10). In both cases there is testimony that unrighteous wrongdoers receive retribution even on earth, that not all are permitted to live out their days in iniquity without earthly requital. If this were so, men would forget that there is a Judge. Full retribution for all things is deferred until the Last Judgment; but even here the Lord sometimes renders recompense as testimony that the path of iniquity is an unreliable path. Some do live until the grave in prosperity—so as to receive, as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus shows, their good things for certain virtues in their lifetime.

This cry has its meaning in the moral sense as well. Those who are advancing in the struggle against passions and lusts, sustained by the secret workings of the enemy of our salvation, seeing that life is drawing to its close while the passions are still in force, and fearing lest they should pass into the other life unpurified, rightly cry out for judgment upon Satan who ceaselessly pursues and oppresses them by stirring up their passions. The meaning of such a prayer is: repel and drive him away from me; then it will be easier for me to deal with the remnants of sin that remain in me during my remaining days; and I may perhaps, at least in the evening of life, taste the sweetness of purity of heart. Saint Athanasius writes: “The days of man on earth are few; therefore the prophet prays that during them Satan may be crushed speedily under his feet, and that he himself may bring his soul into subjection to the Divine Word who descended into it.”

Saint Ambrose speaks of this at greater length: “Having established himself on the firm foundation of virtue, the prophet prays that strength be given to him to trample not a man, but the one who is accustomed to seize the ruling place in man. The apostle also teaches that through judgment upon sin in man (during repentance and the rejection of sin) judgment is executed upon Satan, and that his head is crushed through the overcoming of sin: ‘God,’ he says, ‘shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly’ (Rom. 16:20). Thus the prophet asks that God grant him to grind and trample the enemy underfoot with the footsteps of his faith—that even in this body, despite the brevity of his days of life, he may triumph over him. This triumph over the enemy is obtained when he is made to feel the authority and power of the man whom he formerly held in the bonds of sin and passions. This happens when the grace of God regenerates and transforms a person. The Lord gives such a soul authority to tread upon his enemies and crush their heads by his faith, his works, and his exploits. Thus everyone can overcome the enemy. When we do shameful deeds, the enemy boasts over us; but when we are zealous for deeds of purity, righteousness, and self-restraint, then we tread upon this serpent and scorpion.”

Ps. 118:85. Transgressors told me fables, but they are not as Your law, O Lord.

Here a third reason is presented why the cry of the prophet—or the cry of the one on whose behalf he speaks—cannot but be heard. Transgressors, he says, have been leading me astray, inviting me to follow the rules of their way of life. Of course, had I listened to them, I should have been freed from their attacks and offenses; but I did not agree to this, because what they proposed was plainly fables and mockery of every form of righteousness. Not so is Your law. Is it not then just that I should be spared and delivered from the oppression of the enemies of righteousness? How did the torturers not try to seduce the holy martyrs? They put forward the validity of their false beliefs, they disparaged faith in Christ the Lord Crucified, they offered happiness and comfort—and the holy martyrs, not all in word but all in deed, answered them: “All of this is fables, all of this is your own inventions and lies, by which you deceive yourselves and seek to lead others astray. Not such is the law of God; not such is God’s will for our salvation!” And in every age there are no few persons who suffer deprivations and persecutions at the hands of those who do not love righteousness, for the sole reason that they refuse to take part with them in their unrighteousness. Therefore in every age these words find people to whom it is fitting to address them to God in prayer.

In the moral sense the application of these words is broad and universal. Under the name of transgressors are understood here both those who are plainly sinners, who sometimes try by their speech to divert the zealous from the good path, and also the passions with sinful habits, which instead of words put forward their demands under the appearance of law, and above all the unclean spirits, who insinuate themselves everywhere with their suggestions and promptings, urging one to abandon the law of God’s will and to live according to one’s own will—that is, according to their will. All these enemies of truth never propose sin as sin and lawlessness, but always cloak it in what seems like a cloud, under which it appears bearable, permissible, and sometimes even unavoidable. The lover of God’s law, accustomed to walking in its ways, has his senses trained in discerning good and evil, and easily unmasks the flattering pretenses and exposes the lie: all of this, he says, though it may look like a law, is in fact “not as Your law, O Lord”—and he turns away from it. No one who is faithfully walking God’s path is free from such temptations; therefore each such person may weave these words of the prophet into his own prayer.

But not everyone has such discernment, and not everyone can on their own detect hidden deception. Therefore those who are inexperienced should turn to those with more experience for clarification and guidance as to what is right. The enemy sometimes begins a hundred miles away in order to bring someone to a wicked deed. The inexperienced person sees nothing so far but ordinary matters; but further and further on, without noticing it himself, he stumbles and falls into sin. Evil spirits participate in our affairs more than we think or guess. There is not a step where they do not intrude into something, and all with the aim of seeing whether they can catch someone and mock him. Therefore the Lord so insistently says: “what I say to you I say to all—Watch” (Mark 13:37). One must watch, guarding against what is wicked; but no less must one watch in examining even what is not wicked that comes to mind as something seemly and useful.

Ps. 118:86. All Your commandments are truth; they have persecuted me unjustly, help me.

The prophet confirms by this why he did not listen to the mockeries of the transgressors and remained faithful to the law: because, he says, “Your law is truth,” and from this he draws a conclusion: therefore they pursued me unjustly; to persecute someone for truth—what righteousness is there in that? Therefore he prays: “help” me, O Lord, Protector of all righteousness, who am persecuted unjustly! Here lies the fourth reason why help should be given to him. “I prefer,” writes Theodoret, “Your law, because I see all Your commandments adorned with truth; and in their persecuting me there is great unrighteousness.”

Upon the conviction that the path we walk is true rests the firmness of resolution to walk it unswervingly, regardless of any obstacles. This conviction gives courage and inspires, yet for all that it does not take away the sense of the grievousness of persecution, nor does it conceal its unrighteousness. Therefore even with such conviction the prayer “help me” is appropriate; it even gives the greatest boldness in praying for help. One who suffers persecution justly is not suffering persecution at all, but bearing chastisement—how then is he to pray: “help me”? This is possible for him only on the condition of repentance. But even then the more fitting prayer is: “I suffer justly; forgive and have mercy!” Saint Ambrose writes: “The prophet did not say: because they persecute me, help me; but ‘they have persecuted me unjustly, help me.’ For one may suffer persecution, but justly; there is such a thing as the just pursuit of vice. But when someone suffers persecution for truth, for purity, for faith, it is fitting for such a one to say the words of the prophet: ‘they have persecuted me unjustly, help me.’”

In the words “help me” one may see both a prayer for deliverance from persecutions and a prayer for help in enduring the afflictions of persecution. In those zealous for virtue, the conviction stands foremost that God knows better than we what is beneficial for us in our outward lot. “Like a good soldier,” says Saint Ambrose, “the prophet does not flee from battle and is not afraid of encounters with the enemy, being accustomed to war; but, like a faithful and proven warrior, he prays for the sending of help from above and with reverent prayer quickens his own courage. He does not ask for the persecution to cease, but prays for help in bearing it. He knew that those who desire to live godly cannot do without persecutions, and therefore willingly meets them, if only he may stand firm in godliness. We have many persecutors, both visible and invisible; unclean spirits pursue us, heretics pursue us, pagans, Jews. All those who desire to live godly are inevitably under the pressure of persecutions, so that even a single moment free from persecution is hard to find for a zealot of piety. And one might even conclude that when we are not suffering persecution, it is surely because we are not living altogether godly; for if the saying is true that ‘all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution’ (2 Tim. 3:12), then it is also true that whoever does not suffer persecution has not yet begun to live truly godly in Christ Jesus. When there is no struggle, I fear it may be because there is no one wishing to enter into struggle with me. The Lord said: ‘If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you’ (John 15:20). Holy David heard this word in the spirit even before the Incarnation of the Lord, and, like a disciple of Christ, did not shrink from warfare, but boldly entered into battle; for he knew that this would confirm him in godliness, secure his salvation, and bring him the crown of glory.”

Ps. 118:87. They had almost made an end of me upon the earth, but I forsook not Your commandments.

“I was barely,” interprets Saint Athanasius, “not deprived of life by the persecutions.” “They had already,” adds Zigabenus, “brought me to the ground; a little more and they would have taken my life; but even in such extremity I did not forsake Your commandments; in them I meditate and them I keep.” At first the enemies approached with flattering speech, wishing to draw me to their side; but since I did not yield to them, they took a different course and leveled me to the ground, stripping me of everything and reducing me to the point of death. But I endured even these mortal sufferings, and still did not depart from Your commandments. This was fulfilled to the letter in the holy martyrs.

In this lies the fifth reason why it is just to give help and deliver from oppression. I have been brought to the uttermost extremity, and still I stand. If You are testing me, O Lord, it seems the trial is already complete and full, and it is time to set a limit to it; and since despite the extremity of death You still preserve my life, I conclude from this that You are at last ready to bestow upon me the gift of rest, and therefore I pray: deliver me.

In the moral sense one may see here an indication of the most powerful incitements to sinfulness and the power to withstand them. Here is the final limit to which the work of human free will extends in the struggle with the passions—the refusal to consent to what is evil. Consent or refusal is always a matter of freedom; no one can coerce it, not even Almighty God Himself. But beyond this, progress goes no further, insofar as it depends on the will. To tame the passions, to cut them off from our nature, to render them insensible—or what amounts to the same thing, to attain to purity—is the work of God’s grace. The prophet speaks, in the person of one who is assailed: O how powerful were the incitements! Like a violent wind bending a frail plant down to the very ground, so it was with me; but I did not yield. Now I have done everything that depended on me; complete the work, O Lord, with Your grace, and tame the passions that war against me. And perhaps he also expresses a fear: I have held firm thus far, but who knows whether I shall hold firm hereafter? Better take these passions from me, O Lord!

Saint Ambrose expresses this last thought: “It was not in vain that he had recourse to Divine help, knowing that his warfare is with powerful enemies and that many struggles with them lie before him: now unclean spirits attack, now the flesh rises up with its allurements. Though you resist them, you still fear lest you should fall. Let us therefore learn from this to fear above all else our domestic enemy, whom we always carry within us. He is not so much strong as he is cunning and varied in his assaults. He is inflamed by wine, burns with lust, is kindled by the glance at a woman who passes by chance, is fed by hope, but is not weakened even by hopelessness, is roused by allurements, but is not ended even by satisfaction. And here are his vanquishers: fear breaks him down, toil exhausts him, and sufferings crush his head.”

Ps. 118:88. Quicken me according to Your mercy, and I shall keep the testimonies of Your mouth.

The purpose of the present life is the fulfillment of God’s commandments. Whoever holds to this carries within himself the very foundation upon which, by God’s providence, his life can rest. “But,” notes Blessed Theodoret, “the prophet adorned his word with humility, for he asked for life not as a reward for righteousness, but as a gift of mercy, promising in return to keep God’s testimonies.”

Just as in the preceding octave he prayed and prayed and finally said: let it be as Your will pleases, only let my heart be blameless—so here too: he asked and asked, and in the end says: well, let the enemies triumph; only preserve my life, that I may advance more in the keeping of Your testimonies—that is, he concludes with submission to God’s will, which is the very essence of prayer.

In the moral sense this prayer should be a prayer for gracious quickening. Saint Ambrose interprets this verse as follows: “The passions rise up and hinder me from faithfully keeping Your commandments—send therefore grace, or increase the grace that quickens my spirit. Then holy spiritual movements will drown out the movements of sin that has been weakened, and I shall keep Your testimonies without hindrance. I abstain from sinful deeds; but cut off the very passions themselves, so that, looking upon a woman, for example, I may not even in my heart lust after her.”

Or one may understand it thus: “quicken me”—preserve me for eternal life. Let this life run its course in straitness, but do not deprive me of eternal blessedness; and I promise to keep Your testimonies, fidelity to which is an indispensable condition for receiving blessedness in eternity. “By the words ‘quicken me,’ says Saint Ambrose, the prophet was asking not for what he already had—namely, life, for he was living—but for what he desired: to live in eternity, meaning the blessed life. Knowing, however, that in this much-troubled body it is hard to preserve an unaltered good disposition of the soul, he asks for mercy, that he may be continually quickened by the Spirit and through this always live for God and be dead to sin. For when sin is dead in us—life for God is alive, and the keeping of the commandments will continue unbroken and steadily, and will open the path to eternal life in God.”